The Alternate
by Mims
Summary: Xander finds out that sometimes the grass really is greener. Then again, sometimes your lucky if there's any grass at all. All kinds of interesting relationships.


SUMMARY: Xander learns that sometimes the grass really is greener. Than again, sometimes you're lucky if there's any ground for the grass to be on at all.  
  
Set after a possible season 6 finale  
  
Rating: R, always safer rather than sorry  
  
DISCLAIMER: Mutant Enemy and Joss Whedon 1, me 0  
  
Author's notes: (Bold) denotes thoughts, mostly for Xander, but others at a later point. Just saves me the trouble of writing he thought a million times.  
  
ALTERNATES  
  
He stumbled out of the bar. The bartender had been amazed that he had been able to walk when he should have been passed out in a drunken stupor. There were numerous other times he was walking when they told him he should be in a hospital. Of course, they were almost always right about the fact that he should have been at a hospital. (But since when did the facts stop me. )  
  
He grabbed a guy near the door and mumbled, "Life sucks. Women suck. Everything sucks."  
  
At least, that was what he had been trying to say. What he actually said sounded more like, "Hiffffe hucks. Wooooooen wuck. Evvvvverrr gsuckzzz."  
  
He stumbled out onto the street. (Damn them damn them all. I don't need them. I'll be just fine on my own.) He fell down. (See, just fine.)  
  
A tall man shook him gently. He stirred slightly and his drunken haze was gone. (Well either I passed out and this is a crazy drunken hallucination or he really did make the hangover stop. Either way it's an improvement.)  
  
"Can I help you?" he asked the tall man.  
  
"No, I believe it is I who can help you, Alexander."  
  
"Alexander, haven't been called that in years. Help me what? Besides shake off a killer hangover. Thanks by the way," he said as upbeat as he could muster.  
  
"You will need a sound mind and body to undertake what is needed for you to see."  
  
"See what?" (This is creepy  
  
"You will see what it is you need to see," the man said mysteriously. "Come with me."  
  
(Why the hell not?) "Why the hell not? I didn't catch your name by the way," he said as he stood up off the ground.  
  
"Alexander, I am called whatever you like," the man replied.  
  
"Okay, whatever you like. And I go by Xander these days."  
  
"Very clever," the man replied dryly.  
  
"So I can make any name up for you?" Xander asked as they walked down the dark streets of Sunnydale. (There is a very good chance this is all a dream, may as well take full advantage.)  
  
"Yes," the man replied tiredly.  
  
"Okay, I got one," Xander replied brightly. "Bob. You seem like a Bob to me."  
  
"Fine, Bob it is," he responded. "Feeling better?"  
  
"Actually, a little," Xander replied.  
  
"Well, not anymore," Bob told him as he led Xander into a dark deserted house on the side street.  
  
(Right about that one.) Images appeared before his eyes. Buffy. Spike. Willow. Anya. It was all a blur. (Head is spinning like a top.) When they finally stopped, a horrific scene played out.  
  
The Magic Box. He walks in the door and hears a loud crash. He runs into the back and finds Buffy and Spike doing the nasty. He screams at them. They scream at him. He storms out. He finds Willow. Willow is coming down from some magical high. He screams at her. She screams back at him. He tells her about Buffy and Spike. She slaps him and calls him a liar. More screaming. He runs off.  
  
The apartment. He storms in. Tells Anya the whole exchange. Anya is yelling now too. I'm too upset he screams back. Still love Buffy she screams. He is slapped again. He slams his fist through the wall. Anya storms off.  
  
The Magic Box, again. He finds Anya being beaten by Buffy. He runs over. Spike trips him and doubles over from the chip. He screams at Spike and punches him. Willow appears and blasts Xander with some magic. Spike hits Willow and there is no pain. Buffy kicks Anya again, knocking her out. Xander throws a trash can at Buffy. She deflects it easily and charges him. Spike barrels into Buffy, sent back from Willow's magical blast. Xander now charges at Willow, who sends magical bolts through him, again. She disappears.  
  
He gets up and goes over to Anya, who has regained consciousness. She tells him to leave her alone and never talk to her again. Buffy and Spike get up and tell him the same. He screams into the night air.  
  
The world stopped spinning. He returned to the old dark house. (Son of a bitch!) "What the," he started, but Bob cuts him off.  
  
"You see the past. You see the pain. I can also predict what is to come," Bob paused then said, "Buffy will be forced to kill Willow. That in turn will destroy the little that is left of Buffy and turn her into a cold and callous shell. She will begin to abandon her calling. She and Spike will do things. She will begin to live out his violent fantasies, the things he would do if he could. This world will be in peril."  
  
"Bullshit!" Xander demanded.  
  
"You must know I speak the truth, only truth can be spoken in this house." When Xander shot him an incredulous look Bob said simply, "Attempt to lie."  
  
"Fine. My best friend is," he tried to say Angel, but it wouldn't come out. (Crap, he really is telling the truth.) "Okay, so I can't lie. Doesn't mean," he tried to say, you can't, but again he failed. (Shit.) "Tell me some more truth I don't want to hear," Xander moaned. (I hate this.)  
  
"Only you can put right what has gone so wrong and will continue to go horribly wrong," Bob said.  
  
"Okay, I'll bite, how?"  
  
"You must fix your relationships. You are the key."  
  
"No, no, that's Dawn," Xander interrupted.  
  
Bob sighed. "The key to Buffy. Never mind, you will understand soon enough. That is the point of all of this after all."  
  
(This makes no sense.) "Make sense danmit!" he commanded Bob.  
  
Bob sighed again and began his story. "All right. I am a spirit, the guardian of the slayer. I was the watcher of the oldest slayer to ever live. My slayer lived to the ripe old age of 39. May not seem like much, but most slayers don't live to see the test on their 18th birthday."  
  
"Tell me about it. Mine died twice," Xander complained.  
  
"That's it exactly. When my slayer was finally taken the council was impressed with how long she had stayed alive. They discussed with me, and I agreed to, a spell that would allow me to live forever as a spirit. You see Al.Xander, the slayer can only survive for so long on her own. It is the support around her that allows her to live longer than she can on her own. Considering her daily tasks include killing vampires and demons.  
  
"So, I watch over the slayer. But more precisely, I watch over her friends. When I sense that a slayer is about to lose her friends and her support system, I can intervene. But I can only intervene once for each slayer. And only with the one who has influenced her the most."  
  
(Influenced Buffy the most. This guy is off his rocker. Hey!) "What about Faith?" Xander demanded. (You could have helped her and you abandoned her you bastard.)  
  
"A slayer must have a support system for me to intervene," Bob said, breaking from his watcherly tones to allow sadness to creep in. "She had no one for me to go to. She closed herself off to everyone, except the mayor and I suppose Buffy in a way. But I cannot go to Buffy. The spell forbids me from ever having contact with a slayer."  
  
"Why?" Xander asked curiously.  
  
"She has Giles. I cannot come between a slayer and her watcher. The council was foolish to try and replace Giles with Wesley. Though, Wesley has turned out to be all right," Bob mused.  
  
"So back to how I fit into all of this," Xander reminded Bob.  
  
"Yes. You are the key to Buffy. You have influenced her the most. Your decisions, feelings and actions have affected Buffy in ways you never dreamed of. Until now."  
  
"What do you mean, until now?" (Bad feeling, bad feeling is written all over this one.)  
  
"I know you don't believe me. You think things have hit rock bottom. You can't see how you could possibly have affected Buffy so profoundly. How am I doing so far?"  
  
Xander just nodded his head weakly. (This whole thing is way too much. How does he know what I'm thinking and feeling?)  
  
"I figured as much. Oh, and my telling you isn't enough to convince you either is it? So, I must show you." Xander nodded. (This is bad.)  
  
"Have you ever seen the show, Quantum Leap?" Bob asked Xander.  
  
He thought a moment. "Oh, that's the one where the guy goes back in time, lives other peoples lives for a while and sets right some big wrong. It had Scott Bacula in it, I love him. As an actor, not in a different way. Not that there's anything wrong with that," he rambled.  
  
"I see you are familiar," Bob interrupted his ramble. "Good. You will get that same chance. Except, instead of other peoples lives in a different time, I can show you your own life if things were changed."  
  
"Like what?" (This seems like a trick. Demons like to make you wish stuff. Anya used to do that kind of stuff.)  
  
"Just think of anything you wish. Think of feelings you've had. Actions you've done. Something you could change or do differently. But you must be specific. You will get a chance to visit as many dimensions as you want. You must understand how you have affected her. This is the only way."  
  
"It's just that easy?" (No way it's that easy.)  
  
"You live that Xander's life for a day. I follow you around, unseen to everyone except you, and I can fill you in on the details," Bob changed his tone from serious to very serious. "Do you want to help Buffy, Anya and Willow?"  
  
"Of course," he started.  
  
"Then you must do this. It will not be easy. You will see things you wish you hadn't both for the good and the bad. The thing you must always remember about different dimensions, is that nothing is that far removed from your own. A little change could have a great impact. And feelings that come out in one dimension are always present. Some events just trigger them and others repress them."  
  
(My head is starting to hurt again.)  
  
"You won't understand until you begin the journey. It is too hard to understand. I didn't even get it until I went through it with my first charge. Let's do it this way," Bob decided to take a new approach. "Think of something you blame for the way things are currently. Something you were involved in. A feeling, an action, anything that you think caused this to happen."  
  
(What caused this? Buffy banging Spike is what caused this. Willow being addicted to magic caused this. Anya being, well Anya. No. I have to be honest or I won't be able to save them. Plus this stupid place won't let you lie.)  
  
"How do I do this?" Xander asked Bob quietly. (This could go very badly. If this takes me somewhere I don't want to be, I just want to be able to get back here.)  
  
"At the end of this journey, you will return to this point and time. You live one day in the life of an alternate Xander, then we return here and you are given the option to enter another dimension until you understand. Trust me Xander, remember I can't lie," the watcher spirit told him gently. (I may as well see what would have happened if things had gone differently. Let's start with the thing that has caused me the most pain.)  
  
"Do I have to wish?"  
  
"If that helps you," Bob sighed.  
  
"Okay. I wish that I had never fallen in love with Buffy Summers," Xander said, the mere utterance of the words hurt. (Don't know if it's the fact that I'm going to a place where she won't hold that special place in my heart or if it's admitting that I still love her, even after everything.)  
  
Xander didn't have time to contemplate his feelings any longer. His head began to swirl. (Maybe it was all a dream after all. Hangover is coming back, too bad.) The room shook, he felt tingles come over him and he was very disoriented.  
  
When he finally recovered he realized that he was lying down again. (Wonderful, you've become the town drunk who sleeps in the streets. Great job Xander.) He blinked his eyes open. It hurt. The world slowly came into focus. As did his senses. (Hey, this isn't the street. Nice bed, comfy sheets, nice smells. Familiar too.) He rolled over to discover he wasn't alone. He reached his hand over to rub the shoulder of the girl he was with. He got a noseful of her scent. (I know that smell.) He reached his hand up to the girl's head and brushed at the hair. (I was afraid of that.) Next to him in the bed was, Willow.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED  
  
Feedback is needed. I have to have it, even if it's just a quick little rating from 1-10, it just makes my day to know people are reading my stuff. 


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